fear and trembling

Proper 21 A 2011
Exodus 17: 1-7; Canticle 13; Phil 2: 1-13; Mt 21: 23-32


So the season turns, the days are now shorter than the nights. We feel the change—the equinox and its transition is bred into our very bones. I always feel a sense of sadness, a kind of middle-aged “emo” actually, combined with a tinge of buried dread. Have I prepared for this winter—the winter of actual cold as well as the winter of my soul?

This is the beginning of the harvest, when of old the work that was done in Spring and Summer is revealed as having been abundant, adequate, or thin. Churches customarily do their stewardship drives right now, to ask the question of the harvest of our spiritual lives in Christ? Did we sow thinly, keeping back seed, hedging our bets? Or did we sow abundantly, casting our care on God and taking a generous chance on Christ and on our life together in Christ’s Body?

From ancient days the church has put this time of year in the keeping of the archangel Michael and of the other angels. In our calendar they all share one single day, which is fine since Thomas Aquinas said they could all share the head of a pin if they wanted. Michael guards the equinox, the slow disappearance of the sun, and guards the harvest with his strong direct gaze and, sometimes, his scales in which he is charged with weighing souls in the balance. Michael is fair but Michael is known to be kind, and so might place a compassionate finger on one side of the scale if we’re found to be a bit light on the merit-side of things.

It is in light of this searching time, this time of reckoning and accountability, that Paul’s words strike at my heart:

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…”

The questions are questions posed to each of us. The answers will look different for each of us, because the Kingdom of God is not a realm of robots. But there will be a contour and shape to our lives that we will hold in common, if we are struggling to live together in a way that reflects the Gospel.

The shape of that life is reflected in the readings today.

The people of Israel were thirsty in the desert. There’s really no surprise there. Just as in a church that struggles with a sense of need, conflict arose, people grumbled and complained, and they even turned on their leader, in this case Moses. The choice made by Moses makes all the difference. He does not turn around on the people and fight back with the same words. Moses turns instead to God. He dares to place his complaints at the feet of the One who has been with them. God instructs Moses to strike the rock, and water flows out. Many years later, the New Testament will tell us “And the rock was Christ.”

When we work out our salvation together amidst a sense of scarcity, we all, leaders and people, are to turn to God and place our needs at God’s feet. This may not be remembered as our finest moment as it was not for Israel, but it is a moment when we remember again that God is our redeemer.

Paul referred to this experience at Massah and Meribah because the early Church was not a community of sweetness and light, but one of squabbles and struggles. The stakes were higher than ours today—they were under direct threat from forces bigger than themselves, and they were trying to live a brand-new set of teachings. There was a lot of petty politics, what we would today call “drama”, and simple human meanness. In light of this Paul says, “Have the same mind in you as was in Christ…he did not grasp at divine identity, but he emptied himself like a cup turned upside down…he took the form of a slave…” We work out our salvation when we look on one another with humility and gratitude and love, and let the humble Christ reach out and serve one another, laying aside our need to be right and our need to be obeyed.

Jesus too knew the reality of living together, how people can posture and squabble and boast and play politics and walk away and even betray. Trying to forge a community in the midst of tensions between the old religious establishment, the “cradle Episcopalians” as it were, and the new rough-edged people joining his movement, he tells the take of two sons. One has the right words, “O yes sir, off I go!” but does nothing. The other says flatly, “Not me!” but goes off and does the work asked of him in the end. Who is doing the will of the Lord? Better a rough-edged blunt refusal, followed by a quiet serving, than a pious “Amen” with no intention of actually going to the trouble of living out those hard Gospel demands. Today we might say that “the eco-hipsters and agnostic activists are getting into the Kingdom ahead of the church-people.” We work out our salvation when, no matter what we do or do not say with our mouths, or how we dress or what kind of music we like, we do what people reflecting the Gospel do.

This time of year reflects the harvest of the earth and of our lives. The great archangel gazes upon the truth of how we have lived. It is a merciful thing that we are re-reminded of what the harvest of our lives is meant to show if we take on ourselves the name of Christ. Turn in confidence to God, put aside petty ambition, serve humbly as Christ served, walk our talk or else don’t even talk the talk—that’s the contour of lives where we are working out our salvation with fear and trembling. There’s room for lots of variety within those contours, but the end is a life we live together, where people can hear and see an echo and reflection of the life and teaching of our Master.